To kick things off a HUGE congratulations to Lindsay S. who was the winner of the Motorola Droid RAZR MAXX HD that we gave away in our booth at the Marketplace Show. Lindsay’s new phone will run on the Verizon 4G LTE network and boasts a gigantic battery and blazing speed. She was lucky No. 6 in our random drawing and her tweet on why she needed a new phone was, “My old phone is dying, the screen is getting lines!” Congrats, Lindsay, I hope your new phone works great!

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This week will start off a short series of reviews that I’ll be doing on some of the various products that I have here, some will be from the Tech Savvy Gadget Presentation from the Marketplace show in case you missed it. This week we’re going to take a look at a product that will bring out your inner fashionista.

Plus Motif (www.papierdemaison.com) is one of the latest to come out with a series of iPad and tablet cases and they are innovative and unique. When I first got my iPad, I knew that I wanted to get a cover for it. It would protect the screen and hopefully guard against some of the small drops that happen with three small kids. When I went to go look at options, I was a little overwhelmed with how many choices I had and how many styles. There were cases with hinges, with flaps, some had magnets and others had elastic bands — it seemed that the options were endless. It also became very apparent that you not only had to make a choice on what style you want, but also the color and design of the case. For the most part the cases that are available in mainstream retail are single color, or you can get dual color front and back and that’s what you get. If you wanted more options you needed to get more cases, simple as that. I know some people that bought three or four cases and would interchange them depending on where they were going and what they were doing. It all seemed a little too much of an inconvenience to me. Well, now I have options! The Plus Motif iPad and tablet case is an all-in-one cover, notepad and fashion statement.

The Design

The Plus Motif case combines some of the popular design mechanics that other cases use. It has a magnetic front closure that overlaps on itself to hold everything in. It uses elastic bindings to hold each corner of the device inside on one of the panels. They also ship with a notepad of paper and stylus. The notepad is nice, and although it may seem ironic to ship paper with the device that replaces a lot of that I think if we’re all honest even the most tech savvy of us still use them hand-in-hand at least from time to time. The stylus also has an ink pen built into it too, so you can use it both with the device and with the notepad without having to carry both around. There are holes cut in the case to accommodate the cameras and they offer sizes to fit not only the iPad but also the Kindle family and the iPad Mini.

The case itself is made out of a laminated material that makes it relatively lightweight and seems very sturdy. The camera holes do not have protection so there is a chance that if you get water in there it might swell the case and damage it. That being said, if you get water in your case to that extent the case is probably the last thing you’re worrying about. The notepad isn’t anything terribly special in its own right but it is heavier weight paper than usually ships with things like that and it also appears to be the size that will not be hard to replace if you use it all.

So, what makes the Plus Motif case stand out? That’s where the fashionista part comes in. Now, I am not a fashionista, just ask my wife. She does a great job helping me look like a presentable business person and if it weren’t for her I’d probably wear a lot of black and white because I know that’s safe. Still don’t believe me, just ask my kids. I am a firm believer that some socks are better than no socks and if they don’t happen to be a matching pair — or they are the wrong size or completely different from everything else they’re wearing — well, that’s OK. As a side note, my kids don’t like it when Dad is in charge of helping them pick out their clothes for the day.

The Plus Motif cases take a lot of that guesswork out of it. The case, on the front panel with the magnetic enclosure, also has a panel attached by two smaller magnets that allow you to take that panel off and interchange it with other designer panels. This system allows you to change the panels — and therefore your fashion statement — on a regular basis. You can purchase the designer panels at a fraction of the cost of other cases and they have a wide selection for you to choose from. Go to their website (www.papierdemaison.com). They have their Plus Motif Designer and it will let you mix and match all their designs so you can see what the combination will look like before you buy it.

Are there any downsides you ask? Well, that is fairly relative. If you want your iPad to make a statement and stand out in a crowd, this is a great product. If you want your iPad to be personalized to your tastes and be interchangeable with your wardrobe, this is a great product. However, it does add considerable size to your device, and if you want a case that keeps your iPad as thin as possible, you may not be interested. If you’re a non-fashionista like me but still like the features of the case, they do have other options that tone down the fashion and leave you with more function.

All in all it’s a perfectly functional case and if you like having options without multiple cases this is a great option to consider. It was a lot of fun showing it around the office and the opinions from my coworkers were mixed — some loved it and some could live without it. It just goes to show that not everyone wants exactly the same thing and with a Plus Motif case you don’t have to have the same thing. Bottom line — check it out. If nothing else it’s neat to see how the panel design works.

Heads Up!

Keep checking the column, in the next couple weeks I’ll be looking at the Samsung Galaxy Camera that runs Android OS! I’m super excited that Verizon is letting me take a look at this and so far in the few minutes I’ve used it there is a ton of potential and the picture quality is great! Stay tuned for the review and comparisons that we make compared with DSLR equipment as well.